When friends introduced me to Carly Drake, she seemed just like any other University of Wisconsin-Madison student. But Drake just arrived in Madison. She was a rising senior at Tulane University, looking forward to her last year of college, when hurricane Katrina hit. Drake and her friends evacuated their duplex house and drove in congested traffic to Atlanta. Initially, they weren't too concerned; they had been evacuated once as freshmen and in New Orleans, hurricanes are "never a big deal," said Ms. Drake. "We thought we'd be gone for like, two days."

As they followed the news, Ms. Drake and her friends realized senior year was taking on a bizarre twist. The Tulane website and e-mail server went down and the school kept in touch with students via daily postings on its emergency website.

Some of Drake's friends went home; she stayed with friends in South Carolina. "I wanted to wait to find out for sure when we could go back," she said. Then, once the extensive hurricane damage became apparent, "everybody ended up having to transfer."

The UW seemed like a reasonable choice of schools for Drake, whose family lives in Whitefish Bay, Wis. As her friends scattered to universities across the country, Ms. Drake moved into a small apartment on Langdon Street.

"It's so sad," she said. "But [at least] I have all my friends from high school here." She noted others have transferred to schools where they don't know anyone. Ms. Drake was quick to describe the clashing personalities of UW and Tulane. "Tulane is completely opposite from here," she said. "It's smaller. The student body is incredibly diverse."

While Madison may reach the same level of drunken excess as New Orleans, its Midwestern brand of beer, brats and football is at odds with the Cajun city's all-night revelry. "In New Orleans the bars never close," Ms. Drake said. "[The cities are] very different. I cannot stress that enough." Although she said New Orleans was "corrupt and backwards," Ms. Drake spoke fondly of the city, saying she'd never been anywhere else like it.

An international relations major who plans to attend law school next fall, Ms. Drake is enjoying life in Madison. She recently saw pictures of her flooded New Orleans home and realized that her belongings are likely ruined. But "I'm okay with it," she said. "This sounds really corny, but at least I have something to come back to. Some people lost everything."

Tulane administrators believe the school will be up and running by spring semester, but Ms. Drake has her doubts. "That's just a feeling I have, not based on any fact or knowledge," she said, adding: "At least I had my three years there."

The same can't be said for Tulane's incoming freshmen, like Lauren Gruber, a 19-year-old from Janesville who had just moved into her dorm when she was forced to evacuate, leaving all of her possessions. "When I was there it didn't really seem like a big deal, everyone was downplaying it," said Ms. Gruber. "Then it was kind of a shock."

Fortunately for Ms. Gruber, because the evacuation occurred on move-in day, her family was with her, and the group "took a ride with a complete stranger out of town" before flying out of Birmingham, Ala., back to Wisconsin. "A lot of travelers were stranded," Ms. Gruber said. She chose to come to the UW, where she'd already been accepted, because "it's close to home and I had about two days to figure it out."

Initially commuting to class from Janesville because she had no place to stay in Madison, Ms. Gruber now lives in a lounge in Chadbourne. She'd only met one of her suitemates at Tulane — a girl from Baton Rouge, La., — before the evacuation, and the two have exchanged e-mails. Ms. Gruber expects that if school starts next semester at Tulane, "it'll probably be like a typical fall semester, at least for the freshmen."

Like Ms. Drake, Ms. Gruber knows a handful of UW students from high school. Although she felt more comfortable with Tulane's smaller size, Ms. Gruber likes Madison and finds the students and faculty friendly. The transition wasn't too hard, she said, because "you don't really think of it, you just do it."

Despite the chaos of the last few weeks, both Ms. Gruber and Ms. Drake are aware of the suffering in New Orleans and Drake plans on returning next semester to help the less fortunate. "It was very surreal to see pictures of people and things 10 feet under-water that I have seen on a daily basis for three years," Ms. Drake said. "I am in the middle of arranging to go down to New Orleans second semester to go clean up.

"Although it is not possible to reclaim all that is lost," Ms. Gruber added, "I hope that those who did lose everything are able to rebuild their lives."

Cynthia Martens ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in Italian and European Studies.